Arabs also practiced Artisanal Taboo

[Shimbiris]

I didn't say they made up the separation in terms of communal boundaries and the assigning of roles, they made up the idea that these were rigid caste structures or taboo towards artisanship when they were in actuality rooted in an economic subsistence strategy and exchange system.

I think we are largely arguing semantics when I look at it carefully. Your point is that this wasn't truly an absolutely rigid and set caste system like in India and that people, depending on the times and circumstances could shift in and out of these roles? I'm inclined to see your point and not necessarily argue about that. Even the European writers who make the quick Hindu caste comparison probably would concede this. Somalia, Arabia, the Horn and the Maghreb do not truly have a rigid, age-old, immutable caste system with no social mobility and that literally correlates with the genetics of the populations. Not really for the most part, anyway.

My only point, however, is that the tribes and peoples not engaged in this sort of work usually did in fact look down on it and feel "superior" to it and ostracize the people practicing it at that time, whoever they were and force them to form their own "in-group", regardless of how fluid that in-group could be from time to time. This clearly seems an established tradition. You can call it a bondsman system or a pseudo-caste system but at that point we're arguing semantics, no?

 

[Midas]

I think we are largely arguing semantics when I look at it carefully. Your point is that this wasn't truly an absolutely rigid and set caste system like in India and that people, depending on the times and circumstances could shift in and out of these roles? I'm inclined to see your point and not necessarily argue about that. Even the European writers who make the quick Hindu caste comparison probably would concede this. Somalia, Arabia, the Horn and the Maghreb do not truly have a rigid, age-old, immutable caste system with no social mobility and that literally correlates with the genetics of the populations. Not really for the most part, anyway.

My only point, however, is that the tribes and peoples not engaged in this sort of work usually did in fact look down on it and feel "superior" to it and ostracize the people practicing it at that time, whoever they were and force them to form their own "in-group", regardless of how fluid that in-group could be from time to time. This clearly seems an established tradition. You can call it a bondsman system or a pseudo-caste system but at that point we're arguing semantics, no?

I find it interesting how different north and south arabia are described. I would have assumed southern arabia would have been the more sophisticated owing to yemen

 

[Idilinaa]

I think we are largely arguing semantics when I look at it carefully. Your point is that this wasn't truly an absolutely rigid and set caste system like in India and that people, depending on the times and circumstances could shift in and out of these roles? I'm inclined to see your point and not necessarily argue about that. Even the European writers who make the quick Hindu caste comparison probably would concede this. Somalia, Arabia, the Horn and the Maghreb do not truly have a rigid, age-old, immutable caste system with no social mobility and that literally correlates with the genetics of the populations. Not really for the most part, anyway.

My only point, however, is that the tribes and peoples not engaged in this sort of work usually did in fact look down on it and feel "superior" to it and ostracize the people practicing it at that time, whoever they were and force them to form their own "in-group", regardless of how fluid that in-group could be from time to time. This clearly seems an established tradition. You can call it a bondsman system or a pseudo-caste system but at that point we're arguing semantics, no?

They only concede by calling them bondsmen and make it clear that they are not low caste.

A Preliminary Investigation of the Blood Groups of the Sab Bondsmen of Northern Somaliland

known to free-born Somali as Sab have frequently been described as low caste but they are more correctly bondsmen

International African Institute., 1961

as Sab have been called ' low - caste ' , but they are implementation of development schemes in the correctly bondsmen . Traditionally every bondsman region . was bound to a Somali patron and protector .

Which comes from them understanding that is not a caste because its them providing services in return for patronship and protection.

What's missing here is the understanding that this is simply a subsistence strategy and exchange system, it's important we use the correct terminology to capture what they are and what their role is, it's not semantics.

Castes mostly exists in feudal contexts due to their rigid social structures and hierarchies, it existed in Europe ''serfdom'', it existed in Japan with ''Burakumin'' for example etc

As you said Somalia or Arabia were not feudal societies with rigid immutable social structures.

I haven't seen scholars compare them to hindu castes either. Hindu caste system is where a village next door has a genetic distance greater than two separate European countries because of how they do not intermingle with eachother for centuries, like non of that is the case with Somalis, where even the so called ''bondsmen'' are genetically identical to the ones they live around.